City of Mississauga / CanU 2021 Webinar
September 29
Identity of Urban Places
This event was jointly organized by the City of Mississauga and the Council for Canadian Urbanism as part of the announcement of the winners of the City of Mississauga Urban Design Award 2021.
The Mississauga Urban Design Award celebrates the City’s ongoing desire to inspire and celebrate city builders that improve the quality of life of its residents and raise the city’s image (identity?). This year’s theme -- “Identity of Places” -- invites us to reflect on what “identity” means in our Canadian context and on how urban design plays a role in shaping this identity: how geography, cultural diversity and inclusion, climate change, and the need to advance an urban resilience agenda encourage us to design unique urban places in the Canadian context.
This panel will tackle these questions from the perspective of four leading Urban Design practitioners from across the country.
Cet événement a été organisé conjointement par la Ville de Mississauga et le Conseil canadien d'urbanisme dans le cadre de l'annonce des lauréats du City of Mississauga Urban Design Award 2021.
Le Mississauga Urban Design Award s’inscrit dans la volonté de la Ville d'inspirer et de célébrer ses bâtisseurs qui participent à l’amélioration de la qualité de vie de ses résidents et qui contribuent à forger l’image de la ville. Le thème de cette année - « Identity of Urban Places » - invite à réfléchir sur ce que « l'identité » signifie dans notre contexte canadien et sur le rôle que joue le design urbain : comment la géographie, la diversité et l'inclusion culturelles, les changements climatiques et la nécessité d’accroître la résilience urbaine influencent la conception d’espaces urbains uniques dans le contexte canadien.
Introduction
Amr Merdan, Urban Designer, City of Mississauga
Moderator
Eric Turcotte, Architect, Urban Planner and Urban Design Partner, Urban Strategies Inc
Panelists
Sharon Mittmann, Manager, Urban Design, Planning and Building Department at City of Mississauga
Kalen Anderson, Vice President of Capital Planning and Chief Planner for the National Capital Commission in Ottawa
Ryan Gorrie, Architect and Principal at Brook McIlroy/ Indigenous Design Studio
Jennifer Nagai, Director / Principal at PSF Studio
Eric Turcotte
Moderator
Eric Turcotte, MCIP, RPP, MRAIC, OAA, OAQ, LEED AP BD + C
Partner, Urban Strategies Inc.
Eric is an Urban Designer, a Planner and an Architect. He is a Partner at Urban Strategies Inc. and has over 25 years of experience in Canada, the United States and Europe. Eric has extensive redevelopment experience in sensitive urban areas in Canada – notably in the GTA, Ottawa, the United States and Europe. As a partner, he has led numerous award-winning downtown revitalization plans, community design plans, transit oriented developments and large scale master plans. He has recently completed the award-winning University of Ottawa Master Plan and is currently working on a new mixed-use development of the north portion of the Dufferin Mall property in Toronto
Eric is an Urban Design industry leader and the President of the Council for Canadian Urbanism (CanU). He is a member of the Waterfront Toronto Design Review Panel and the chair of the Brampton Design Review Panel Pilot Project.
Sharon Mittman
Sharon Mittmann
Manager, Urban Design at the City of Mississauga,
the 6th largest city in Canada.
Sharon Mittman has an undergraduate degree in Architectural Science from Ryerson University and a Masters in City Planning from the University of Manitoba. She held several positions of increasing responsibility in areas that include architectural control, policy development, heritage planning and special needs housing policy prior to joining Mississauga in 1999. In her current role she works in the Planning and Building Department and oversees a team of urban designers, architects, landscape architects and landscape architectural technologists. Her team develops strategic policies and implementation plans as well as provides expert review of development applications to ensure great urban design as the City of Mississauga grows and develops at a rapid pace. She also is a Board Member of the Design Industry Advisory Committee (DIAC) and an active member of the CanU Urbanizing Suburbia Caucus.
Kalen Anderson
Vice President of Capital Planning and Chief Planner for the National Capital Commission
Kalen Anderson is a registered professional planner with over 15 years of experience in Alberta, Ontario and Quebec. She is currently serving as the Vice President of Capital Planning and Chief Planner for the National Capital Commission. Prior to her time in Ottawa she was a Planning Director at the City of Edmonton where, among other things related to the oversight of urban policy and implementation, she led the development and approval of Edmonton’s City Plan. Kalen is an alumnus of the University of Alberta where she earned her BA and MA degrees in sociology and went on to receive her master of urban planning degree from McGill in 2006. She’s been focused on building great places with people ever since.
Kalen Anderson
Ryan Gorrie/ BFA, M.Arch, MAA
Principal, Architect, BrookMcIlroy/ Indigenous Design Studio
Ryan Gorrie has been collaborating with Brook McIlroy since 2009, when he was retained as a key member of the design team for the award-winning Spirit Garden in Thunder Bay, and formally joined the firm in 2016 to lead the Winnipeg office and the Indigenous Design Studio. A First Nation member of Bingwi Neyaashi Anishinaabek, Ryan strives to ensure the perpetuation of Indigenous culture through creative opportunities ranging from the crafting of traditional items for ceremonial use to large-scale landmark architecture. He is a licensed architect in Manitoba and Principal of the firm. In 2018, Ryan’s work was showcased in UNCEDED: Voices of the Land at the Venice Biennale along with the work of 17 other Indigenous architects and designers across Turtle Island.
Ryan Gorrie
Jennifer Nagai
Jennifer Nagai, CSLA BCSLA OALA ASLA LEED AP
Jennifer Nagai, Principal with PFS Studio, has over twenty years of professional experience balanced between urban design, large-scale master planning, detailed landscape architecture and project management assignments. Under Jennifer’s leadership, the team at PFS has successfully delivered some of the firm’s most notable city-building public realm assignments across a wide range of contexts and scales. Within her work, Jennifer aspires to create landscapes that are founded on visionary placemaking principles that engage the community. The successful delivery of Grange Park, the reinvention of the historic park located adjacent to the Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto is a demonstration of her commitment to consultation and design execution. Building on the success of Grange Park, Jennifer is now working with the Ontario College of Arts University (OCADU) to reimagine Butterfield Park, the open space adjacent to Grange Park.
This event was jointly organized by the City of Mississauga and the Council for Canadian Urbanism
as part of the announcement of the winners of the City of Mississauga Urban Design Award 2021.
